Monthly Archives: April 2009

Another Monday morning again and like everyone else I had to go to work. I work all by myself in the unoccupied beach front homes of absentee homeowners. I’ll go weeks without talking to anyone but after centuries and decades of managing employees, if I never have to deal with one again I’ll be a happy guy. But that’s a whole nother story.

I was tired ’cause once again I spent all weekend working. When Miss Carol and me don’t have house guests (which is rare since we live at the beach and Miss Carol is one of 12 and we have a million bejillion nephews and nieces and they all want to come to the beach but that’s a whole nother story) we work on the house and try to keep stuff from rusting, which is one of the things they don’t tell you about when you move to the beach. Everything rusts. Plastic rusts. If you lay awake at night and listen carefully you can hear your house rusting. It’s a constant battle. But, again, that’s a whole nother story.

I spent Saturday working on painting Casa Oceandoggy once again, two gallons at a time because that’s all my sanity will allow. But that’s a whole nother story.

I’m also getting the bay boat ready for another season and the catamaran re-rigged for easier sailing. But that’s a whole nother story.

My brother and his little cupcake are coming down next weekend so we can tear out the fence around Casa Oceandoggy so that I can build a new one. Fence I mean. But that’s a whole nother story.

But then tonight, at the end of a long day which was at the end of a long weekend I was walking the dogs, feeling a little beat down when a friend of mine, barreling home in the golf cart that he uses to clean pools on the island swerved, stopped, and offered me a cold beer so that he wouldn’t have to drink alone.

And ya know what? I just wanted to french kiss the world. It was quite possibly the best beer ever. 

There are times that I love being me.

So anyway.

When Miss Carol and I would go to work we would put Cutter and Tug in the small half bath off of our living room. They would sleep on their blankies (Miss Carol’s word- not mine) on the floor of the shower. They had all of their toys, food, water, newspaper, and each other. You would tend to think they’d of been happy.

Wrongo!

Once the doggy gate was in place they would commence to barking and whining something pitiable. I don’t know if they carried on the whole time we were gone each day but they were certainly still doing it when I’d get home for lunch and again when we got home at the end of the day. Cutter would be furiously trying to clamber over the gate and Tug would be sitting in the corner looking mournful and guilty.

Picking them up, both would nuzzle and nip at our faces as if we had been gone for years and years and they were worried they would never have seen us again. 

Beware giving your heart to a dog to tear.

It was movie night at Casa del Oceandoggy last night and we watched the eagerly anticipated Marley and Me. I have been waiting for this movie to become available on NetFlix ever since I read the book. I have often felt that Marley and Me is our generation’s Old Yeller and I was really hoping the movie would be great.

Even after it was announced that Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson would play the lead roles and even after seeing all the release posters showing Jennifer with Marley on her shoulders, I remained hopeful that Hollywood and Jennifer wouldn’t eff up another great story. 

My hopes were dashed last night.

Somehow, some kinda way, Hollywood managed to take a moving story about a dog’s life and death and turn it into a cutesy lovefest celebrating two blandly mediocre actors. And, oh yeah, did I mention there was a dog?

Except for the end, Marley was totally moved to the periphery. In scene after scene we watched as Jennifer was cutely perfect and Owen was cutely imperfect and Marley bounded around in the background chewing on things. Um, did I mention there was a dog?

Not only did Marley lose his story, he lost his identity. In the final twenty minutes or so every scene has a different Marley. They were changing dogs like a stripper changing costumes. Heeelllllooooooo, did I mention there was supposed to be a dog?

Finally, at the end of a movie largely devoted to Jennifer and Owen someone remembered that the dog has to die and it’s done in a grandiose style befitting a NASA space launch. Believe me, I’ve been there and done that and it ain’t nothin’ like that. Owen looks cutely imperfectly sad and Jennifer looks cutely perfectly sad, but life has to go on and hooboy, did I mention there’s a dog? 

I only hope that Jennifer and Owen made enough money on this film they can retire and not infect us any longer with their cutesy pithiness.

Oceandoggy’s take? Lift your leg and pee on this one. 

Good boy.

On the weekends we like to walk the beach and let the boys run. Yesterday evening when we went up they were tuggin’ in the wrong direction like boats in a storm and sure enough, when I released them they bolted. Gone down the beach until the onliest thing we could see was matching yellow Lab tails twitching on the horizon.

Which just makes me crazy. 

Cutter and Tug don’t have to do anything but laze around on the furniture and scarf up treats. I walk them twice a a day, every day, for a mile. On the weekends they get the run of the beach. They don’t have to clean up after themselves. They don’t have to help with chores. They don’t have to mow the lawn or do  long division.

All they have to do is come when then they’re ‘effin CALLED. That’s it. That’s all. Just stop what they’re doin’ and race in our direction when we call them. I don’t think it’s too much to ask and it makes me a crazy turd when they run like that. 

Which led to Miss Carol being a turd, which led to all of us being turds.

Turds by the sea.

I keep saying I’m going to write more, post more, do more. But somehow I don’t. 

It’s mostly maybe laziness, but not always. Like tonight, we had to take Cutter to the vet because when we got home his eye was squeezed shut, which meant taking Tug to the vet, which meant the entire clusterfuck of wildly excited full-on male Labs tussling with barely adequate veterinary assistants trying to corral them.

It made me giggle and the boys acquitted themselves well, giving almost no ground. But it was exhausting. Dog wrestling just flat wears you out.

I’m looking forward to the sunny sun-swept days of summer. Except for the Touron part.